News

Fuming over refuse failure

A BEWDLEY woman has been left “appalled” after witnessing bin men empty her garden waste into a regular household rubbish lorry.

Kerry Jones, of Spring Grove, pays £38 per year for Wyre Forest District Council’s service, which sends grass and shrub cuttings for composting rather than to landfill, but last Thursday her green waste was not collected separately.

The local authority admitted that, for “reasons of service delivery”, collections were sometimes missed but defended its overall recycling rates.

Mrs Jones said she was “quite disappointed”, adding: “I pay for the collection service because I think it’s great that all my garden waste goes for composting instead of adding to landfill.

“You might imagine then how appalled I was to see the crew blatantly emptying both my household waste bin and my garden waste, side by side, into the collection wagon.

“At one time the lorry came around twice and collected the garden waste separately from the household waste but this is obviously not the case any more.”

Mrs Jones added she intended to continue with the service because it was convenient and saved her trips to the recycling centre but felt the local authority should apologise.

Councillor Helen Dyke, the council’s cabinet member for operational services, said: “The garden waste service has been a tremendous success since starting in 2012 and forms an important part of our commitment towards the environment and efforts towards reducing waste to landfill and increasing recycling rates.

“The service now has more than 3,700 customers and sends over 1,000 tonnes of garden waste for recycling into compost every year. However, there are occasions when, for reasons of service delivery, vehicle breakdowns or possible missed collections, when we may have to divert one of our standard waste collection vehicles to respond and make a collection.

“Thanks to the efforts of local people we managed to recycle over 31 per cent of our waste last year and were one of only two local authorities within the Worcestershire region to increase our dry recycling rates, which is a fantastic result.”

A message to Councillor Dyke, the lady pays the council to dispose of her garden waste, she is paying for the council to recycle her waste, so the council can reach government targets, I'm afraid the council actions are not good enough. Give her the money back if that is how you are going to treat conscientious rate payers.

A message to Councillor Dyke, the lady pays the council to dispose of her garden waste, she is paying for the council to recycle her waste, so the council can reach government targets, I'm afraid the council actions are not good enough. Give her the money back if that is how you are going to treat conscientious rate payers.SOS lad

Get a life 'appalled' Kerry Jones! So what if on the odd occasion your grass cuttings go in landfill . The garden waste service on the whole is excellent and you must recognise this as you're continuing with the service. What are you after - a refund for that week, err that'll be a couple of quid then at most And Kidderminster Shuttle - have you nothing better to report!

Get a life 'appalled' Kerry Jones! So what if on the odd occasion your grass cuttings go in landfill . The garden waste service on the whole is excellent and you must recognise this as you're continuing with the service. What are you after - a refund for that week, err that'll be a couple of quid then at most And Kidderminster Shuttle - have you nothing better to report!ctamsin